My job

I recently read a blog by Kris Dunn entitled “The Five Worst Jobs in HR” below is an couple of excerpts


“The real issue is the level of challenge and the perception of your career path once you’ve landed in one of them. The five worst jobs include career killers and work components that would crush the soul of most HR pros. Here’s a primer on the elements common to the five worst jobs in HR to get you in the mood to explore:
· The worst jobs are so niche-oriented your mom can’t explain what you do. I understand a rotation through a specialty is a good thing, but these roles are generally subcategories of a specialty, making it tougher to bounce out to a generalist role when you are ready.
· The worst jobs often involve heavy administrative work. If the work product you can point to at the end of the day is a report or a file, run like crazy. The problem with many of the worst jobs is that once you are done outlining your role for future employers, the person interviewing you envisions you filing papers four hours a day. Not exactly a momentum builder for your future.
· The worst jobs involve tasks that are soul-crushing work for most HR pros. Every job has components you don’t like doing. That’s life, and you’ve experienced it before. Now take the soul crushers in your current job and multiply them by 50. That’s the strategic opportunity many of these jobs provide. “

I won’t bore you with the whole article, as is geared toward an HR geek. But I wanted to share the #1 worst job in HR with you.
“LOA/FMLA administrator: Oh, the humanity. This administrator is a centralized control point for leave of absence and FMLA applications in your enterprise. That means this job sees all the trials and tribulations that employees (and their families) go through. You name it—disease, death, dismemberment— this person sees it. To be sure, there’s good that can come from it, in that an empathetic person in this role can calm employees moving through the leave process.
That’s negated by the reality: This person has to make a call on whether to challenge a suspect application, and that is one of the most confrontational situations you can find in the HR world. As part of this, you also get to question multiple FMLA applications that are 100 percent legit, meaning you’ll be seen as evil. It’s also one of the most administrative positions available. Stay away! “
That’s what I do for the University. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year (thank God for vacations!). Soul-crushing barely begins to describe it.
I try not to get emotionally involved with the employees I am responsible for. It makes it so much harder for me to deal with the bad things that happen. And in this job, it happens a lot. The only soul saving part is when I am actually able to help an employee who has a supervisor from hell, take the time off they need to care for themselves, their kids or their parents.

If I didn’t work with three great women I wouldn’t have made it this long.

I had a really rough start to this year. My father became very ill and died quite suddenly in January. February and the first half of March were spent trying to tie up the loss ends of his life. Not an easy task when he had his own business. With the help of my wonderful husband, my brothers, sister-in-laws and some awesome friends of my father, we were able to get it all taken care of.

In the midst of all of that it comes to light that my teenage daughter has had a total melt-down. She had started doing drugs, drinking, having sex and failing her classes in school. To top it off, my ex-husband was called to active duty with the Army Reserves. Thankfully he didn’t get sent out of country, only to NJ for the next 1-2 years. My teenage son decided that he wanted to go with him.

Just as things seem to be settling down toward the end of March, B ended up in the hospital with gallstones. He had is gallbladder removed. 10 days later he aspirated some food into his lungs and ended up back in the hospital. Thankfully he was ok after each of these things. I honestly held my breath in April waiting for something bad to happen. May was a little easier to be optimistic and June has been good.

All of this has made me wonder why is my ability to handle EVERYTHING being put to the test so much this year? Did I do something to make God think he needed to test me a BUNCH this year? Yes I know, God doesn’t put anything in front of you that you can’t overcome somehow. And that you should learn from each of these tests.

Of course I have learned some really important things. While my brothers and I might not have had the best relationship with my father, he had some truly wonderful friendships and touched a lot of people in a very positive way. My brothers are both wonderful guys who will do whatever is needed to help out. Their wives are great also.

My husband of only a few months is THE BEST MAN EVER. I knew I loved him when I married him. I knew he loved me also. I didn’t realize the depth of that love for him or him for me. It is amazing and wonderful.

I have also come to know that even when you do everything right with a kid, they will make up their own minds. You can put them in a bubble and keep the world out. You can teach them right from wrong, and they might still choose wrong. And it’s all ok. I am not a bad parent because of her choices. I have given her the right tools, she needs to use them. And she seems to be doing just that. No more drinking, drugs or sex. The grades are slowly getting better.

I think the biggest thing that I have learned is that what I thought was the end of my rope, that point when I wouldn’t be able to take anymore, isn’t where I thought it was. I hope that I don’t find the end of my rope.